Tag: relationships

How to Remain Human in the Age of AI

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn AI, Business, Communications, Conference learnings, Dehumanisation, Ecology, Environment, EQ, Humanness, Leadership, learning, Life, Personal Excellence, Purposeful Leadership, Purposefulness, Relationships, Team Excellence, Technology, ValuesLeave a comment

Artificial Intelligence is transforming our world at an astonishing pace. Tasks that once required human expertise can now be completed in seconds. AI can analyse data, generate content, recommend solutions to complex problems, and even engage in conversations that feel remarkably human.

While these advances offer tremendous opportunities, they also present a profound question: as machines become increasingly intelligent, how do we remain deeply human?

The greatest risk of AI may not be the loss of jobs or the disruption of industries. It may be the gradual erosion of the very qualities that make us human. As we become accustomed to outsourcing our analysis, thinking, decision-making, and even aspects of our relationships to technology, there is a danger that efficiency begins to replace wisdom, convenience begins to replace effort, and information begins to replace understanding.

Yet, when viewed through the lens of purposefulness, we see that the more capable AI becomes, the more valuable uniquely human capacities become.

One of these capacities is judgement. AI can process vast amounts of information, but it cannot fully understand psychosocial contexts, emotions, values, ethics, or the consequences of decisions in the way humans can. Much of this knowledge is unique to each individual and is shaped by lived experience rather than stored in a data centre. In an increasingly complex world, the ability to exercise sound judgement will become far more important than simply possessing information.

Continue reading “How to Remain Human in the Age of AI” →

What Inspires You?

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Communications, family, happiness, hope, Leadership, Life, Love, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Relationships, Soul Nourishing Poems, Spiritual, ValuesLeave a comment

A collection of Ranjan De Silva’s favourite poems recited by him with short introductions and debrief of each poem at an online Rotary meeting between Rotary Club of Colombo Reconnections Sri Lanka and Rotary Club of Nanganallaur, India.

As you listen to these poems reflect on what inspire you. Is it the selection, a particular poem, the themes, the words, the way they are recited, relevance to you, your mindset or anything else?

The poems include;

  • If you think you can you can
  • Little Cloud
  • Risk
  • Rose
  • Cookie thief
  • Love is separateness
  • Plea of a graceful lady
  • Determination of an extra-ordinary man
  • Forgive me when I whine
  • Anyway

Soul Nourishing Poems

Find Purpose & Let Money Find You

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Cash Flow, Health Care, Life, purpose, Purpose Quest, Spiritual, ValuesLeave a comment

Relationships & moneyAfter having arrived in Dhaka with a packed schedule of coaching, facilitation and consulting assignments for multiple clients on the 14th of March, I suddenly found myself having to make some decisions on how best to respond to the universe who decided that we need to change the way we operate.

With some companies postponing  the scheduled sessions, free time was opening up. What do I do with this time? It takes time to sell the time and right now most of my clients were fire fighting, figuring out what they need to do. Therefore I decided to be available to them. Continue reading “Find Purpose & Let Money Find You” →

Is EQ the answer that IQ could not provide?

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Communications, EQ, IQ, Knowing, Leadership, Learnings that Matter, Life, Personal Excellence, psychology, RelationshipsLeave a comment

In the name of psychology and neuroscience, Daniel Goleman shares his insights on why IQ is not an accurate predictor of how well one does in life. A new metric is called for, one he calls, ‘Emotional Intelligence’. Everyone has the capacity to develop their emotional skills and improve their EQ. This video shows you some examples of ways to cultivate your emotional intelligence so you can put them to work at home, in the workplace, and in your relationships.

Attention! The word ‘depression’ in this video simply refers to feelings of sadness and not ‘clinical depression’.

The following process can be used to create a learning experience for your team using this video. Continue reading “Is EQ the answer that IQ could not provide?” →

What is Your ‘Cookie Thief’ moment?

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Communications, Knowing, Personal Excellence, psychology, Relationships, Soul Nourishing PoemsLeave a comment

The Cookie Thief – A Poetic Story – Recited by Ranjan De Silva

I have experienced many ‘Cookie Thief Moment’ in my life. What about you? What was yours? What did you learn about your Beliefs, Attitudes and Values from that moments? Is there any over-due actions that must be taken now to respond to that moment. What ‘baby steps’ would you take to respond to the old ‘Cookie Thief Moment’ and prevent new ‘Cookie Thief Moments’ from happening?

Soul Nourishing Poems

Purpose of Living – Part 21: Inspiring others to live a purposeful life

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Communications, Ecology, Health Care, Knowing, Leadership, learning, Personal Excellence, psychology, purpose, Relationships, Spiritual, Team ExcellenceLeave a comment

inspire
Image credits: http://icorecoach.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the next ten blog posts. I invite you now to reflect on the ninth aspect in the model of purposeful living– inspiring (the dark blue colour circle in the model). While this is the ninth and final circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine circles, it’s not necessarily chronological. There could be also other circles that are yet to be discovered. Once we gather momentum in living purposefully, we start inspiring others to live purposefully as well.

This blog-post deals with our responsibility to inspire others to live a purposeful life. We can inspire others by design or by accident. On one hand, others can get inspired when they see the improvement of our quality of life as we attempt to live a purposeful life.  Living a purposeful life includes; living with a set of positive values, engaging in spiritual activities, looking after our health, building quality relationships, building financial stability, developing intellect and allocating time for purposeful activities. On the other hand, we could use our roles in life to inspire others. These roles include being a parent, sibling, relative, teacher, leader, colleague, author, speaker, and social figure such as a sportsman, entertainer, business leader, religious leader and social leader etc. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 21: Inspiring others to live a purposeful life” →

Purpose of Living – Part 20: Learning & Growing as we Struggle to be Purposeful

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Communications, Health Care, Knowing, Leadership, learning, Personal Excellence, purpose, Relationships, Spiritual, Teams2 Comments

struggle-has-purpose
Image Credits: Grouphigh.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the next nine blog posts. I invite you to now reflect on the eighth aspect in the model of purposeful living– Learning & Growing; the bronze colour circle in the model. While this is the eighth circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine circle process, it’s not necessarily chronological. Learning and growth that occurs due to an experience could make us feel fully alive and of service to the world and this can make us reflect and find purpose. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 20: Learning & Growing as we Struggle to be Purposeful” →

Purpose of Living – Part 15: Purposeful Choices

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Business, Health Care, Knowing, Leadership, learning, Personal Excellence, purpose, Relationships, Spiritual, Team Excellence2 Comments

purposeful choices
Image credit: http://www.emzingo.com

We explored the notion of purpose from various viewpoints in the first ten blog posts in this series. We then started making sense of our purpose in the last four blog post. I invite you to now reflect on the third aspect in the model of purposeful living– The choices (the orange colour circle in the model). While this is the third circle, in real life it can happen anywhere in the nine steps; it’s not chronological in real life.

This aspect deals with making choices once we have a glimpse for the beginning of what our purpose might be. When I had a glimpse of my purpose 22 years ago, I made choices such as finding opportunities to improve my knowledge regarding personal development through Neuro Linguistic Programming and organisational development through continuous improvement by reading and conducting training for my team at Keells Super, and attempting to apply this knowledge in my work and personal life. I started spending more time with my family because helping them grow and see them grow gave me joy. They are the oxygen that energized my flame. These choices were relevant to my purpose, which was about helping myself grow to my fullest potential by helping others to grow to their fullest potential. I started going to the gym regularly as I wanted to keep my body in shape so that I am fit to do purposeful work. I started to pray and meditate regularly and felt peace of mind. I also started to be more helpful to others thereby building high quality relationships. I knew all these were in some way connected to my purpose as I really felt good doing it. Continue reading “Purpose of Living – Part 15: Purposeful Choices” →

Paradigm Prisons into Paradigm Prisms

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Communications, Leadership, Personal Excellence, Relationships, Spiritual, Team Excellence, Teams5 Comments

Paradigm Prisons to PrismsWe are one of seven billion people in this world and each one of us sees the world from our own paradigm. This short blog post will examine the dangers of getting imprisoned in a paradigm and the benefits of becoming a prism as prisons are restricting and prisms are reflecting.

For example, when it comes to a decision of buying a family car, each family member would look at the decision from a different paradigm. The father might look at technical performance and fuel efficiency, the mother might look at the spaciousness and colour scheme, the teenage son might look at how classy it looks and how fast it can go and the teenage daughter may not care about any of this. When each family gets prisoned in their paradigm, they will not be able to come out of it to look at the decision from other paradigms, leading to possible misunderstandings, conflicts and even permanent damage to the quality of relationships.

Therefore the question is, how do we get out of the paradigm prison?

Continue reading “Paradigm Prisons into Paradigm Prisms” →

Using 2014 to energize us for an amazing 2015!

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Communications, Personal Excellence, Relationships, SpiritualLeave a comment

Learnings from 2014
Image Credits: http://www.economicsinsights.com

We are not equal to our past; we are the resources we bring forth. Yes, the past is gone, we need to leave it where it belongs, and however we need to also take the resources from the past to energise our future.

We all started the past year with fresh hope for our families, our teams and ourselves. We planned to make the New Year the most spectacular year of all. Some of us were able to build on success and continuously improve to achieve and even surpass what we set out to achieve. Some others may have started off with great plans and found it fizzle off really fast.

The best we can do is to derive energy from the last year to gear up for a great 2015. This requires us building on the successes and take learning’s from areas that could have been better.

Given below is a few simple steps that can help you to gear up for an amazing 2014.

This can be done individually, as a family or with your team.

Continue reading “Using 2014 to energize us for an amazing 2015!” →

Valentines day Everyday!

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Communications, Personal Excellence, Relationships, SpiritualLeave a comment

Image Credits: Bing.com
Image Credits: Bing.com

Love is the act of extending ourselves to help others or ourselves become the best they/we can be even if it is inconvenient to us.

Love is helping ourselves or others understand the real potential, the purpose of life and to ignite the passion to live life to the fullest.

A mother feeding her child the best of food is performing an act of love as she is helping the child grow. A father working day and night to send the child to school is performing an act of love as he is helping the child grow. A young man maintaining a disciplined exercise regime is committing an act of love as he is helping himself grow in health. A man patiently listening to his lover when she is confused about life is performing an act of love as he is helping her reach clarity.

Continue reading “Valentines day Everyday!” →

Love is for giving, that’s why we should be forgiving! – my valentines day thoughts!

On By Dr Ranjan De SilvaIn Leadership, Personal Excellence, Relationships, Spiritual, Uncategorized1 Comment

Image
Image credits: http://www.timeanddate.com

It is great to have Valentines Day, the same way we have mother’s day, father’s day etc. While many commercial enterprises have used these days to make money, it at least reminds us to express our love to our loved ones, at least once a year.

But why celebrate such important days once a year? Why not every day? Why not make every day Valentines day, Mother day, fathers day and perhaps a few new important days such as reach out to enemy’s day, make up with fallen out friends day, get in touch with old friends day etc.

While Valentines Day is about celebrating love by giving surprises such as gifts & visits and special dinners & cruises it is will be great not only to ‘give’ but also to ‘forgive’. After all, love is for giving and that’s why we should be forgiving.

Forgiving is tough if we hold on to the past hurt and pain. Sometimes it is our ego that won’t allow us to forgive. Holding on to the bitterness only creates negative energy in us as we carry those negative feelings in us. Accepting that we are all human, we are not perfect and we all make mistakes helps us in the forgiving process.

Forgiving helps us to repair relationships and therefore it is beneficial to fostering quality relationships, or closure so that we can rejuvenate relationships or move on with confidence.

When the almighty god always forgives us, why not we take a cue and follow suit.